Clean Sheets, Dirty Daggers
by vanillafluffy
Summary: No one is born a pirate, not even Captain Jack Sparrow. How did a youthful encounter with pirates lure him from the straight and narrow? Jinxed by At World's End.


Many years before his betrayal by Barbosa and the curse on the Black Pearl, Captain Jack Sparrow was an honest man and the Pearl was an ordinary merchant vessel. A chance encounter with pirates on the high seas may change all that....  
  
This story is not-for-profit, just good, clean fun. Enjoy!  
  
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If there's one thing a sailor knows, it's how to tie knots. A slipknot which can be released with a single tug is a very simple knot, but only if one can reach the free end of the rope. Jack made sure there was enough tension on the line to keep the ends of the rope well out of reach before stepping back from the bed. The woman lying there was not going to appreciate his precautions in the least when she awoke.  
  
"Captain Sparrow!" came a frantic shout from the deck. "They're preparing to board!"  
  
With a last fond glance at his captive, Jack caught up his cutlass from the table and bolted for the cabin door. On the Black Pearl's main deck, his men were attempting to fend off the crew whose ship was alongside the Pearl. There were a few sporadic shots -- the Pearl's crew had little in the way of firearms -- which weren't enough to stem the tide of pirates belaying their way aboard.  
  
Jack made a leap for the nearest invader, slashing at him before the fellow's boots came to rest on the deck. The pirate went down, clutching his thigh. With another stroke, Jack's cutlass hacked into the man's neck. Jack was appalled as the boarder fell back, screaming hoarsely as blood fountained everywhere. He'd never imagined a man could have so much blood in him!  
  
The Black Pearl's young captain had no time for remorse; another cutthroat was following his fallen comrade across to the Pearl. Jack was kept too busy for the next several minutes to do more than slash and parry. Around him, his men were giving as good as they got. Walters had gone down; Jack could see another of his men clinging to the rail to support an injured leg, all the while waving his sword at an oncoming pirate.  
  
It seemed like there were pirates everywhere! How could there be so many of them when their ship wasn't any bigger than the Pearl? More of his men were down, dead or injured.  
  
As Jack was thinking their peril could be no more dire, he spied one of the buccaneers opening the door to the captain's cabin and coolly stepping inside. His blood ran cold at the thought of the helpless woman within. The next pirate to die by Jack's blade was of no consequence to him, merely an impediment that stood between the captain and his cabin. Two more luckless boarders were sent to the hereafter before Jack reached the half-open door.  
  
Squinting in the dimmer confines of the cabin, the pirate had noticed the bed's occupant, who was now awake and magnificently furious. Jack bounded toward the other man, rage in his eyes. "Get away from her!"  
  
Their swords clashed. Over the clang of steel, the woman shouted, "Jack, I'm going to kill you for this!"  
  
"One at a time, love!" Jack called as he fought off the next series of parries from the invader.  
  
A lurch of the Pearl as the vessel alongside was wave-tossed against her sent the pirate off balance, and Jack was horrified to see the man's sword strike the bed where the bound woman lay. "No!" he groaned, dodging the other man's renewed attack.  
  
The sword cut through the rope securing her ankles to the foot of the bed. As the two men battled, she raised her legs until she'd squirmed into a C-shape, and with nimble toes, began to tug at the end of the rope restraining her right arm. No sooner had she gotten the slipknot to release when Jack's lunge drove the interloper back suddenly against the end of the bed. He overbalanced, sprawling onto the mattress, cutlass dropping from his grasp.  
  
At once, the woman uncurled her legs, capturing the fallen pirate's head between her still-bound ankles. Jack sprang forward and ran him through. "Get that mess off my clean sheets!" she exclaimed. As he bent to do so, there was a commotion at the cabin door -- another pirate trying his luck. Jack raised his sword, ready to do battle again. Meanwhile, the woman on the bed had snatched an ornate dagger kept under the pillow and, flicking the knife with deadly accuracy, neatly spitted the would-be thief.  
  
Before Jack could close his mouth, she'd yanked loose the remaining rope from her left wrist and began tugging at the knots binding her ankles. He looked from her to the doorway where the skirmish still raged. Sensing that attempting to keep her from the fray would be more dangerous than fighting pirates, Jack hurried back out to the deck, hopping over the body with the dagger protruding from its ribs.  
  
On the main deck of the Pearl, the tide of battle had turned. The faces of the men still standing were familiar ones to Jack, and he took heart. In what seemed like seconds, the remaining pirates were conceding defeat. Cutlasses struck the deck one by one as the buccaneers surrendered.  
  
Jack turned to his men as they began roping together the captives. "All right! Now let's take the fight to them!" he cried, and the crew members not engaged in guarding the prisoners swarmed toward the rail.  
  
On the other ship, one of the buccaneers, sensing a change in the wind of fate, leveled a pistol and took aim at the Pearl's captain. Jack's attention was focused on the group readying to board the pirate vessel. His first inkling of danger was the silver flash of a dagger as it whirled past his nose to sink into his would-be assassin's chest. The pirate's shot went wild and punched a neat round hole into a locker not two feet from where Jack stood.  
  
He looked back to the woman standing framed in the doorway of his cabin, words of gratitude forming on his lips. "Tell them I want that dagger returned, Jack!" she said sharply.  
  
The captain grinned at her and called to the mate leading the assault. "You heard the lady! Better get her pretty knife back, or we'll never hear the end of it!"  
  
Apparently the pirates who'd remained on their own ship were the less talented ones; the Black Pearl's crew secured the ship with remarkable ease. As they took control, Jack eyed the woman, who was rubbing her wrists where the rope had chafed. She flexed her jaw muscles and glared at him. "Jack Sparrow, don't you ever do a thing like that again!"  
  
"If I hadn't knocked you out, I couldn't have tied you up," he pointed out. "I didn't want you getting into trouble during the fight."  
  
"You idiot, do you think that fellow in your cabin was planning to tell me a bedtime story?"  
  
"I just wanted to keep you safe, love!" protested Jack with injured innocence.  
  
She made a sound of disgust. "Life's not safe, Jack, and my place is at your side." Smiling at her heartfelt declaration, Jack had just time to rest his hand on her shoulder when a cry arose from the other vessel.  
  
"Captain Sparrow, you've got to see this! You can't imagine the riches they've got here, it's incredible!"  
  
"Don't forget to go through their provisions," she said, assuming her role of ship's cook as he prepared to cross to the pirates' ship. "I'm tired of salted beef and stale biscuits!"  
  
It took several hours to transfer all the booty over to the waiting Pearl. As the boarding party had promised, it was a fabulous cache -- gold, silver, gems, spices and silks, exotic artifacts from all ends of the earth. After disarming the pirates of all weapons, down to the forks in the galley, the Pearl's crew disabled the rudder chains on the other ship and pushed their captives overboard to swim for it. The Black Pearl sailed away, victorious.  
  
"That's not a bad day's work," remarked Jack much later that night as the two of them tallied the last of the loot that had been heaped in the captain's cabin.  
  
She looked at him in disbelief. "Not a bad day's work? Are you mad? You've lost three men, eight more are wounded to some degree, and you were nearly shot! That's far from a good day in my book!"  
  
"True, very true," Jack hastily agreed, stealing a look at a casket brimming with jewelry, "but you did get your dagger back."  
  
"And nothing like this will ever happen again, will it?"  
  
"I didn't ask for pirates to come calling!" Under her steely gaze, Jack relented. "Of course not, love. It'll never happen again."  
  
The treasure winked at him.  
  
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Someday, I'll get around to writing the full story of Jack and the Pearl's cook -- it's a looong story....  
  
Meanwhile, my sincere thanks to doppelganger86, whose story "Be careful what you wish for" gave me all kinds of evil ideas. ?storyid=1985413) and to genevathebold, best friend and beta extraordinare!  
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